This blog is for me to put up my PSAs to the world. This blog represents the views of no company, group, or whoever. If a post is more than a day old, it may not even represent MY views.

Sunday, June 22, 2003

Here is a nifty rhetorical trick to recognize, for easy countering. A common bigot's trick is to give a criteria that has nothing to do with the right or privilege that they want to withhold from group A, but that (this is the trick) categorically excludes group A. Then they try to say that this is somehow integral to the right or privilege which means group A can't have it, but the real point is just to exclude.

Here is an example from history. A long time ago, there were laws called Jim Crow laws. An example of this sort of law was the grandfather clause. You could vote if your grandfather could vote. However, no blacks could vote because their grandfathers had been slaves, and slaves couldn't vote.

So when you see this sort of reasoning, point it out. I hope I have helped.